Net Neutrality Court Ruling: Government Wins, We Lose

Seton Motley | Less Government | LessGovernment.org
Judges Breaking Things

The Washington, D.C. Circuit Court yesterday delivered a bizarre, antithetical-to-reality 2-1 ruling upholding the Barack Obama Administration’s Internet power grab.

In February 2015, the Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – unilaterally, without Congress – “reclassified” the Internet. Meaning they would willfully ignore actually-pertinent, most-recent law – and instead pretend law written in 1934 for landline telephones was also intended for an Internet that wouldn’t exist for another half century.

The “technological experts” at the FCC did this by pretending that omni-directional, globe-spanning Internet networks – are no different than our comparatively-uber-simplistic telephone networks.

In the name of “competition, competition, competition,” the FCC slammed the Internet with laws written for a government-mandated monopoly.

But if you regulate the Internet like it’s a monopoly – you will soon end up with a monopoly. And that monopoly – will be the government. See: the Post Office. And the Veterans Administration. And ObamaCare….

The FCC engaged in all of this inanity – to magically grant themselves huge new regulatory (and taxing) powers over the Internet – that they did not have under actual law.

Which “allowed” them to then impose the very awful Network Neutrality. And “allows” them to impose all sorts of new anti-economy, crony-feeding uber-regulations.

Judges and Justices are charged with enforcing the law as written – and ensuring others do the same. Yesterday, two judges totally abandoned this vitally important responsibility. They watched the government defy the law and grant itself nigh-limitless power – and backed the play.

Yesterday was a very bad day for the Internet. And our economy. And the rule of law. And our Constitutional separation and balance of powers.

But let’s look at the bright side. The incompetent, pathetically slow government’s boot-print just got exponentially larger.

Okay – so there isn’t a bright side.

This first appeared in Red State.

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